So what has the EU ever done for us?

Jun 2 2006 A Shockingly Small Proportion Of Britons Actually Understand The Role Of The Eu. Today, Frustrated Mep Philip Bushill-Matthews Conservative Employment And Social Affairs Spokesman, Explains Its Role.

Europe is very much in the headlines at present, if only for reasons of the World Cup.

By comparison the UK's involvement in the workings of the EU, as a major member of the largest trading bloc in the world, gets comparatively little coverage.

Such coverage that does appear in the UK media is usually bashing Brussels - and is usually based on misinformation.

A prime example was the Radio Four poll of UK listeners late last year to find out who they thought really governed Britain. Top of the poll was European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso - who fell about laughing when he heard the news.

The commission has no powers to govern Britain or anywhere else for that matter. When it comes to determining EU legislation, the Commission has no votes.

Perhaps it would be helpful to explain briefly how the EU works, and the role of the region's elected MEPs in the process.

There are four main EU institutions: the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The European Commission is assumed to hold the most powers because it has the sole right to initiate legislation. This is misleading: it cannot dream up any law it fancies. Its official role is legally described as "the Guardian of the Treaties": in this capacity it has the responsibility to propose legislation that directly fulfils the intentions of Member States as signed up to by Heads of Governments in the various EU Treaties.

A comparison might be the UK Civil Service, which also draws up legislation at the behest of the UK Government of the day. But just like the UK Civil Service, the commission can only propose and not impose.

Such proposals only become law if and when they are signed off by elected politicians. This is where the council and the Parliament come in. On most EU issues nowadays these two institutions are "co-legislators", in that they jointly share the right to amend draft legislation and finally jointly to agree that such legislation should be accepted - or indeed thrown out.

The European Council consists of elected Heads of Government of each Member State, and the Parliament consists of elected MEPs. Talk therefore of laws being imposed by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels is simply nonsense.

Finally, the European Court of Justice is there as a backstop either to clarify or resolve any doubts about what agreed laws actually mean, or to act to uphold agreed EU laws when individual countries appear to be breaking them.

A recent example of the latter is that the EU Commission is now threatening to refer France to the ECJ for putting new protectionist barriers in place to impede the progress of free trade within the EU.

For those of us who believe passionately in the importance of completing the Common Market, the Commission is neither our enemy nor our European government but actually our ally. You will never read this in the press.

You also seldom read anything about what MEPs do, given that we spend most of the week on the continent - therefore out of sight and out of mind.

The majority of the time we are in Brussels, where the Commission is based and where all the committee work takes place. But 12 times a year we all de-camp to Strasbourg because Member States have now written this into a Treaty, and it can only be changed by unanimous agreement by all 25 countries.

There are no prizes for guessing which country thinks that staying in Strasbourg is a splendid idea.

It is not just MEPs who go. 3,000 staff, including interpreters, all wend their weary way across Europe to get to this out-of-theway city with poor transport links. Forty lorry loads of papers and post are also trucked down there. The cost and the waste and the inefficiency are obvious to all - except the French.

It is not being party-political to record the simple fact that the original deal to have Strasbourg as the official seat was initially agreed temporarily for five years by John Major.

In return, he secured a UK opt-out from the Single Currency and the Social Chapter. It was Tony Blair who turned this into a binding commitment for all time in the Treaty of Amsterdam. In return, he got the Charlemagne prize for being a good European.

Post readers will come to their own conclusions as to who secured the better deal.

There are 78 MEPs representing the UK, of whom seven collectively share responsibility for representing the West Midlands region. Our territory covers all of the counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire together with Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry. Over-all this area covers 59 Westminster constituencies, and some 5.3 million people.

The seven of us comprise three Conservatives, two Labour, one Liberal Democrat and one from the UK Independence Party. Like any other politician we each try our hardest, from our differing points of view, to do what we consider best for our region and our country.

In essence we have two jobs. One is back home, helping individual constituents or organisations with specific problems or challenges to do with the EU. The other is in the Parliament itself, where we help shape European law. Sometimes the two roles overlap.

A Labour MEP colleague, Michael Cashman, does major work on human rights. One area he has helped specifically with is the problem people face when their loved ones die in another EU country and the body has to be flown home. This is a time of maximum distress, and Michael has worked most effectively in simplifying procedures across the EU to make this as stress-free as possible. Nothing to do with the "Common Market", but an issue that needed agreement at EU level nonetheless.

Lib Dem MEP colleague Liz Lynne has championed the cause of the disabled across Europe, not just in shaping EU directives but monitoring the varying performance by member states so that the disabled have equal rights, and equal opportunities, wherever in the EU they may be.

My Conservative colleague Malcolm Harbour MEP, like myself a former businessman, has just been voted the most small-business-friendly politician out of all Westminster MPs and all Euro-MPs combined. That in itself says it all. In the European Parliament we are able to help businesses significantly as well as help people. That is why we are there.

You do not get a Common Market by the stroke of a pen. You get it by painstakingly developing common sets of rules by which all agree to abide.

European nation-states operating completely independently will never achieve free trade. Before we joined the EU we were members of EFTA, the so-called European Free Trade Association. It could never deliver free trade, either.

That is why we joined the EU, and why we need to be actively and constructively engaged in shaping the Europe we want despite the many frustrations in the process.

The biggest frustration is that few people know what MEPs do, and even fewer care. The biggest satisfaction is remembering that we were elected to make a difference, and knowing that we can.